


the worst isn't over

by jessicamiriamdrew



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Angst, M/M, Science Boyfriends, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/pseuds/jessicamiriamdrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn’t supposed to happen to him. Not to Tony and Bruce. With Bruce, Tony had fucking finally gotten it right. They made sense, they fit together. The scientists, the heroes, the parallel life structure. And then it got fucked up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the worst isn't over

**Author's Note:**

> recommended listening: no children by the mountain goats
> 
> _I hope it stays dark forever  
>  I hope the worst isn't over  
> And I hope you blink before I do  
> And I hope I never get sober_

This wasn’t supposed to happen to him. Not to Tony and Bruce. With Bruce, Tony had fucking finally gotten it right. They made sense, they fit together. The scientists, the heroes, the parallel life structure. And then it got fucked up.

The fighting. Tony didn’t talk about it with anyone, not even Bruce, but he was in fucking constant pain from the arc reactor. It had gotten better with newer models but there was always low level pain in his life. He ignored it. But then something changed and all of the money he threw at new models of the arc reactor wouldn’t fucking fix it.

So he started drinking again. Alcohol dulled the pain, made him forget, let him still pretend he was invincible. As long as he didn’t feel the pain, he could pretend there wasn’t shrapnel pressing into his organs.

But Bruce didn’t know, didn’t have all of the information to put all the puzzles together. All he saw was Tony Stark and a drink in hand. Tony flirting with everyone around. Tony pouring himself one more and than another.

So Bruce yelled at him. Screamed at him. Honestly, Tony was impressed with that, taken aback by the amount of control Bruce was displaying. He didn’t know Bruce could do that without the other guy making an appearance.

“This is different,” Bruce said.  
“Nothing has changed,” Tony said.

Tony knew things were getting awkward at mansion for the rest of the team. People started tiptoeing around him, like they were afraid to set him off. No one had ever treated Tony like a fragile thing before. Broken, maybe, but never breakable.

“I’m leaving,” Bruce said.  
“You can’t leave,” Tony said.

And Tony was right about that; Bruce couldn’t leave. He was a member of the Avengers and as part of that he had to be at the Avengers mansion. S.H.I.E.L.D. would revoke the protection of any of the Avengers if they left the team. Bruce and the Hulk had too many enemies, too many interested parties to make leaving a possibility.

So Tony got what he wanted, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted Bruce laughing beside him again. Staying up late in the lab doing experiments and then collapsing in bed, dozing off to sleep, waking up to have sex.

Instead he had a Bruce who was growing so bitter and angry that Tony struggled to find the things about Bruce he loved. This wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t Tony’s fault that Bruce changed. He was supposed to stay the way they had been when they fell in love. Tony hadn’t changed.

The Avengers were trying to fix things between the two of them. it was awkward enough for all of them, living together, without Bruce having fucked everything up. Tony ignored their attempts, mostly. If Bruce wouldn’t change, wouldn’t go back to how things were, it didn’t matter.

Tony and Bruce used to have sex. Sometimes they even made love. Now they fucked. It started with them fighting, yelling, screaming. Bruce would throw things and Tony would turn on him furiously. That vase is worth more than your entire fucking life, he yelled once. Bruce just laughed at him, laughed until it became hysterical. “At least my life has worth,” he yelled back.

They fucked and left scratches and welts and it was angry. It was a competition for who could hurt the other person more. None of their team members dared to say anything about the bruises and marks that were visible.

Tony wished someone cared. He thought he’d had people who cared. He thought Bruce was it, Bruce was the one.

When Tony finally punched Bruce, he wasn’t surprised. It happened, it was happening. Then Bruce punched him back and it all felt so much more real. It was equal grounds. It never happened again.

“This is not who we are,” Bruce said.  
“Are you sure?” Tony replied.

Tony knew Bruce would never be happy without him. Knew it surely, knew it the way he knew he used to mean something to Bruce. They used to mean something to each other. Used to love each other, maybe, but he wasn’t sure of that either.

They cowered around each other but couldn’t break out. Stuck together, stuck in some sort of fucking orbit of unhappiness.

Tony cut himself shaving. He idly pondered that Bruce couldn’t die. He looked at his face in the mirror. He tried to see the person he used to be. He couldn’t find the person Bruce fell in love with. He couldn’t find himself.

Bruce threw a glass down at his feet. “Stop fucking drinking, Tony. Don’t you care about us?” Tony laughed, it bubbled out of his chest. The laughter mixed with the alcohol in the system. He felt frenzied. 

“I care about who you used to be,” he said. “Before you got so pathetic.” Tony didn’t look at Bruce. He walked out of the room, ignoring the glass crunching under his shoes.

Maybe they couldn’t be happy together, not like they were before, wouldn’t ever be that way again. But Tony relished in the knowledge that Bruce had to be nearly as miserable as he was.

That’s how things would stay. Fucked and miserable and useless. 

One of them would die eventually.


End file.
